Messrs. Chapman and Hall publish The English Song Book, edited
by Harold Scott. It is a collection of eighteenth and nineteenth century popular songs, of the type that con- temporary butcher boys whistle and organ-grinders play. The words and the air are given in each case. The words are in no case memorable, but the tunes are lively and singable, at least in the eighteenth-century songs. The comic songs of the 'seventies and 'eighties have that curious quality of exciteableness and high-pitched laughter which we associate now with bustles and mutton-leg sleeves, and
which seems slightly embarrassing to a later and more casual- mannered generation. They sang serious songs, too, in the music halls of those days. The audience would turn from a boisterious five minutes of Oh, what a forward young man you are " . to :— " Please, Sir, will you listen a moment, I've something important to say,
Hy mother has sent you a message, Receive it in kindness, I pray.
'Tis of father, poor father, l'm speaking, You know him, he's called Ragged Gore ; But we love him, and hope we may save him If you'll promise to sell him no more.
Please sell no more drink to my father, It makes him so strange and so wild, Heed the prayer of the heart-broken mother, And pity the poor drunkard's child."
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